Super Street Network

2014 Scion tC - Simpli-tC

The 2013 Scion Tuner Challenge Champion

If you recall, a few months back we announced the details and contestants for our 2013 Scion Tuner Challenge featuring the all-new, tC. The challenge provided three individuals from various demographics with a brand new tC, a $15K budget to do whatever they’d like with and a strict time frame of 90 days to complete the build, load it up for SEMA and be judged in front of the entire world. Though each entry respectively showed an immense amount of passion and dedication, after a long and anxious day of patiently waiting, the panel of judges finally announced the winner, crowning Young Tea champion.

Dubbing his ride “Simpli-tC” Young wanted to go about constructing his project in a way that would represent the very premise the Scion lineup is based off of—producing an affordable car that’s not just physically trendy, but also streamlined for efficiency, allowing consumers to easily create a ride with the luxuries a normal base model would lack—Young did just that.

Starting with the exterior, Young entered an entirely new realm for himself and began constructing the bodywork from scratch. Please note—Young has had an immense amount of experience getting his hands dirty with bolt-on work, but bodywork was another story. In his first attempt, Young successfully molded an extra 1" to the front fender flares with an additional 1.5" in the rear allowing the build to house a set of custom forged Nutek fatties under the arches. In addition, a custom-molded rear hatch wing, dual-outlet exhaust diffuser, shaved antenna and full lip kit were added with the guidance of Mike Vu of MV Designz. Not bad for the first time around, ay? Completing the image, the chassis was brought down to earth with a 12-way adjustable damper AirREX air suspension system, giving the wide body a luxurious yet battle-ready stance.

With the new territories conquered and the hefty portion of the job complete, it was finally time for Young to start piecing his vision together. Now, we all know the tC was never meant to be a “fast” car, but no way any obvious tuner would ever leave it stock. Bringing life to the little four-cyclinder engine, Young opted for a genuine Garrett turbo in conjunction with a Dezod manifold and front mount intercooler. Giving the tC the extra little pep it deserves, without trying to claim it as a 500+hp street racer. Though with safety in mind, the build also received multiple TRD chassis suspension components along with Sparco 4-point racing belts and harness bar to make sure Young’s strapped if the SHTF.

Through all the work, trials and errors, Young states the most challenging part of the competition was actually meeting the 90-day deadline. In fact, he actually had to entirely remove himself from his usual day-to-day hustle in order to be able to complete the car. We could not applaud him any more for the dedication… Hopefully the $10K he earned in prize money will balance things out for the time being.

What do you think of this style? Do you wish the tC was sold in Japan?

I think that “simple is best” is the best description for Young Tea’s Scion tC and this customizing style is something Super Street readers can relate to. I like the rear wing because it’s not big or GT; it’s simple. It’s also very similar to Japanese tuning style. In Japan, it is hard to own more than two cars because of the parking problem; most public streets is ‘no parking’ and many people rent parking since many houses/apartments only have one parking space each or none. We can see the owner is driving drift car for going to the office. This tC looks like driving for daily or driving at race tracks. When I had DC2 Integra Type R, which was rally car, I drove it for going to work every day. I am not sure tC is good or not for Japan because it’s FF box style (Hakosuka style or two-door sedan/coupe style) sports car. Japanese car magazines say box style two-door sedan/coupe is good after Nissan displayed IDx NISMO edition at Tokyo Motor Show 2013 (it looks similar to Datsun 510). But its rival would be Honda Civic Type R, which is already king of FF sports cars.